


Ghost of You

by stuphanie



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AAAHHH, Character Death, Dissociation, F/M, Feelings, Grief/Mourning, It's just really sad, idk what else to tag, just in case u know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:04:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3239075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuphanie/pseuds/stuphanie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"For the first time in his life, he felt helpless." </p>
<p>What do you do when the one person who completed you sacrifices themselves for the greater good?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost of You

**Author's Note:**

> what if it was Hawke who stayed to fight the nightmare in the Fade?

For the first time in his life, he felt helpless.

The Inquisitor continued to speak and the dwarf watched without really hearing anything. Lavellan’s brow was furrowed as their lips formed words that sounded like a distant murmur in the back of Varric’s mind, saying something along the lines of, _I’ll be around if you need me_ , before respectfully bowing and retreating to the war room.

_I don’t need you. The one person I ever needed is gone_.

He was losing control. He knew because the vast hall was beginning to blur and his head felt light and he had to grab on to the nearby table for support.

Banging his fist on the heavy wood he squeezed his eyes shut – not to keep the tears in because he didn’t _cry_ , not even when Bartrand died – and recollected himself.

No.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Varric couldn’t stay at Skyhold. Right now, there was someone else who needed him, and Maker damn him if he was going to put any of this in a letter. 

* * *

 

Hightown was still a shithole. Bricks and blood stains littered the side streets still, merchants hopelessly flogged their wares, and where the Chantry once stood were the remains of the place of hope and faith it once was. Varric ignored the wrench in his gut when he thought of all the lives lost, and pressed on towards the heavy wooden door tucked away in an alcove before.

He didn’t knock – when did he ever? – and there was a small fire burning in the main hall. From the looks of the dying embers, it could’ve done with a few more logs throwing on it. Varric considered doing such when slow footsteps sounded on the stairs.

“Varric?”

Fenris’s voice held a hint of disbelief and his brow furrowed as if the dwarf before him was just a hallucination. But he was as real as every hair on his chest, and the uneasiness in the pit of Fenris’s stomach grew with every step he took. White hair dishevelled and an oversized shirt hanging off one tan shoulder, he clearly hadn’t anticipated any visitors today.

“Hey there,” came Varric’s reply. His lips tugged upwards into a weak smile but wavered quickly as if keeping up such a casual bravado cost him too much energy and needed at least an ounce of happiness to fuel it.

“Hawke’s not with you?” the elf said.

It was a question more than a statement. A question holding speck of hope that the reply would be, _yeah she’s saying hello to everyone in the Hanged Man but don’t worry she’ll be here soon_.

Fenris knew, just by the way Varric’s eyes blinked and remained closed a second too long, and how his mouth worked mutely for only a moment, that he was not about to receive the answer he was hoping for.

“No,” he said sharply just as the dwarf sounded out the first syllable of his sentence.

“Fenris –”

“No!” the elf snapped, as if repeating the word would reverse everything. To hear it would make it final.

“Hawke – she – it was like the Fade but not –”

“Then she’ll come back if it’s not the real Fade,” Fenris said firmly as if that settled the matter, even casting a glance at the front door just in case Hawke came striding in, that triumphant glint in her eye she always had after battle.

“Fenris.” Varric’s voice was soft, placating even, as if speaking to a small child. “She’s not coming back. I – I’m sorry.” His voice cracked on the last word and an awful hotness prickled at the back of his eyes.

“N-no…” Instead of the defiance he’d held up until now, Fenris felt only hopelessness, despair flooding through his body and his voice too weak to argue. Dimly, he became aware of his knees hitting the rug beneath him, head bowed. His shoulders began to shake. Wet droplets dripped onto the carpet; the room blurred, the warmth of the fire vanished, his knees became numb to the hard floor he knelt on as his world crumbled around him. Every shred of hope… every prayer… was this his penance? Was he being punished for not being Andrastian? For not giving that beggar the last of the silver he had on him that time?

A weighted warmth appeared on his shoulder. Slowly, he glanced up into Varric’s face, the dwarf’s features distorted somewhat by the flow of tears.

“You’re wrong,” Fenris managed croak out. “She – she will be back. I know Hawke. She’s tougher than you or me.”

Varric didn’t reply. He only patted the elf’s bare shoulder slowly, keeping his own feelings on hold until he was back at the Hanged Man where he could hopefully piss his money away until he became numb to this wretched feeling.

“I – I can't – I don’t –” Fenris’s usually low and stoic voice wavered and cracked with unfathomable emotion. “S-she has to come back… she can’t leave me – she promised...”

Automatically, he fingered the red silk scarf permanently tied around his wrist. The words I Am Yours have been embroidered in gold repeatedly in rows.

_I am yours, I am yours, I am yours_.

He’d never hear her voice again, feel her raspberry-red lips press against his cheek in the morning, even feel the light touch of her tracing a dextrous finger along the curves of his lyrium tattoos and commenting on how they sang to her, giggling when he’d tickle her skin back. 

That warmth he relished next to him in bed... the smell of her clean hair on her pillow… He would never experience those minute details, or how everything she did and said brought infinite light into his life.

Fenris stared deep into the dwarf’s eyes, brow furrowed and olive green irises speaking of nothing but pain and emotional turmoil.

“I – I loved her,” the elf managed to say in a broken whisper, fingers clutching at Varric’s shirt as if seeking some sort of physical reassurance. “I loved her more than anything.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Varric squeezed his eyes shut and allowed a single tear to escape and cascade down his chiselled cheek before landing in Fenris’s snow-white hair as they shared their grief.  

_I loved her too_. 


End file.
